Update on latest work
Thanks guys for the kind words. I also was surprised to see that my thread has hit 100K + views, very surprising to me and I appreciate those who have taken time to visit, read, and comment. Thanks folks! Anyway, I figured I would update my thread on the latest goings on with my rig.
Back in September I blew the brake line in the rear where the hard line crosses from the frame towards the rear axle, apparently a
very common occurrance on GM trucks for those who live in a rust belt state. :Wow1: This happened on the day before leaving for vacation so my time off started with about 8 hours learning about the brake lines and how to replace them. Then when the line was replaced I found the driver's caliper seized and the inner pads were shot...it was just "one of those days" when working on my truck. Though, in retrospect, I am glad it happened while I was at home and
not while driving up NC Rt 12 in Corolla NC.
I noticed a
lot of rust creeping in along the frame itself, the entire frame from wheel well to wheel well was brown with it. I also saw where the ARB supplied skid plate for my bumper was starting to shed the powdercoat and rust bubbled through, the Rancho shocks looked shot, and the spool on my MileMarker winch was
solid rust. So, I figured it was time to do some suspension maintenance and wage some war on the rust. I really intend to drive this truck for many years to come – hopefully so I can have historic tags on it – and wanted to do my best to preserve the frame before the rust got too bad.
I took down the loose rust where I could with a wire brush, or sandpaper. I used a scotchlite pad on a 4” grinder to strip down the sides where the grinder could reach, and also used the grinder to strip off the powdercoat on the ARB skid plate. I then painted as much of the frame as I could reach with POR-15 on the outside, followed by a spray coat of POR-15 Chassis Black spraypaint. I used Eastwood’s Inner Frame Rail zinc coating on the insides of the frames and cross braces. I really liked the Eastwood’s product as it came with a 12 inch long spray hose that allowed the paint to be “inserted” into tight places. I even used it inside of my rear bumper. Here is a pic of how dramatic the coating looked compared to the rest of the frame, along with an “after” pic of the area after painting. I also tried to depict how the spray hose works.
After taking care of the paint I took off the Rancho shocks and found them to be absolutely trashed. One was frozen solid, which I guess explained the rotten ride I had started to notice when I drove it. I replaced them with the longer Bilstein 5100’s recommended for the spacer/keys lift that I have. Huge, huge improvement in the ride and I am glad to have bought them. I haven’t given them a run off road yet but they handled some local washboard gravel road quite well. I also got Rare Parts tie rod ends and had them installed. The Rare Parts tie rod ends are
expensive but they look to be truly bulletproof. The local shop recommended the Idler Arm be replaced so I went ahead and took care of that, replacing the Idler Arm, Idler Bracket, and Pitman Arm with Moog parts. Since the front sway bar end links were almost solid rust and corrosion, I replaced them a Raybestos kit. And, while I was at all this work, and since I had put new rear brake pads on during my brake line fix, I put on new EBC slotted rotors and greenstuff pads. Here’s all the front suspension goodies –
The corrosion monster had also gotten its way inside one of the generic fog lights in the ARB bumper light buckets, so I replaced the set with ARB foglights made for the light buckets. I figured I would get rid of the old Hella lights too, and bought a set of Light Force Striker 170 lights from Sierra Expeditions. (a thanks to them for their excellent customer service as they caught a mistake I made on the order before they even shipped it. Thanks much Wil) The light output on them is really impressive and I really like the ability to change out the filters on them. The ARB also had rust showing up where the shackle mounts are, so I painted the lower area with POR-15 and top coated it with VHT epoxy paint. I also put two coats of POR-15 on the spool of the Mile Marker winch and also rehabbed the winch fairlead. The frame for the fairlead had rusted out really badly as well, so it got cleaned up and painted, and I replaced the steel rollers with ones made of Delrin. I added a new hook to my synthetic line and a Daystar fairlead block too. Here’s a couple of pics of the rehabbed front end and the painted rails.
I like how the Daystar block holds the hook and makes for a cleaner looking "face" on the bumper.
Yes, I painted the rear axle too while I was doing all this work.
To wrap up these few weeks of work (too while as I was doing this stuff because I could only put a few hours into the work here and there) I did an E-Fan conversion using a fan from a 2005 GM truck. When I had my BlackBear tune done the owner Justin had thankfully added the needed code for running e-fans to the computer, and I actually had the supplies (factory fans, overdrive pulley, wiring harness, 4 gauge alternator wire) for the conversion here at the house for 2 years but just never got around to doing the install. The conversion went well and was almost….
easy. The hardest part was getting the pulley off of the alternator, as it required my brother to hold a breaker bar to stabilize the center post while I used a wrench to break it loose. There just was no way for me to get it to loosen without help. Otherwise, the rest of the conversion went quite easily and worked exactly as needed the first time I fired it up and ran it through the test phases. I also put new gaskets on the intake manifold, which was easily the most involved thing I have ever done to my engine on my Tahoe since I bought it.
Here she is happily running after finishing the intake gasket. I really like how much more room there is with the fan and shroud gone and am glad to have done the conversion. This is about all I have planned to do until the warm weather returns, I found a stainless steel brake line kit from Summit Racing and figure I will replace all the brake lines then so I never have to worry about my lines going “pop” at a bad time.
